Manuel must emerge as the leader the Mets need

Sep. 30, 2008

Instead of painting a National League Division Series logo on the field yesterday, Shea Stadium work crews left the Mets' logo as broken as their fans' hearts after a second straight September collapse. / Kathy Willens/The Associated Press

Written by

Sam Borden

Journal News columnist

It will take a leader next year. A real leader, the kind of leader who can rewrite a team's legacy, change a team's image. It will take the kind of leader who can make players, coaches, executives and fans forget about two years that are unforgettable.

The Mets have apparently already decided they want Jerry Manuel to be that leader for them. That's fine. Manuel came into a difficult situation this summer, replacing Willie Randolph, who was fired in a way that would have made medieval executioners blush. Manuel did good damage control, got his players refocused, made a run at the postseason that seemed like a certainty with only a few weeks to go.

But then it fell apart (again) and the Mets collapsed (again), and now we head into a winter that seems so much longer than it should (again). Say what you want about the talent the Mets have and the ability they have and the stars they have, but right now, the only thing this so-called "core group" of Mets will be remembered for is failing.

David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran. They came close in 2006, got to Game 7 of the NLCS against the Cardinals and could see the World Series just over the hill. Couldn't get there. Beltran looks at strike three to end the game, his bat stuck to his shoulder like Velcro.

Then came last year and a seven-game lead with 17 to go that somehow wasn't enough. And then came this year and a 3 1/2 -game lead that slipped away, too. Three straight years, three straight disappointments in front of three straight silent Shea crowds.

Manuel is charged with changing it, changing a culture that has somehow infiltrated a franchise. The Mets used to be known as that hapless, sort-of-lovable group of misfits across town from the stately Yankees. They struggled, lost a lot of games, and it was easy to imagine them slipping on a banana peel as a black cat sauntered by. Now it's different. Now they are that team that teases and taunts and tantalizes with its potential, making its fans believe in something great before yanking that greatness back behind the magic curtain. It hurts more, much more, this way. It hurts more than simply losing.

Manuel knows that. He knows that, in all likelihood, the team he takes into 2009 will not look all that different from this one. There will be some changes, sure. GM Omar Minaya chuckled when someone asked what his biggest area of need was before saying, "Obviously it's the bullpen."

But it isn't just the bullpen. Not when the bats go quiet like they did over the final weeks. Not when the hitters vanish like they did in the final three games against the Marlins. The Mets scored five total runs in the three games that could have saved them. Five runs. It wasn't nearly enough.

Standing in a dank hallway outside the clubhouse after Sunday's game, Minaya was asked about the possibility of a big shakeup this winter, a trade involving one of the stars. Maybe it's time for Beltran to go, or Wright or Reyes. Minaya shrugged.

"I'll always entertain" the possibility, he said, "(but) this is the core group of guys that won 97 games (in 2006). This team, I thought, did an unbelievable job of getting us to today. The unfortunate thing is that we fell one or two wins short. We have to find a way to get those one or two wins. So far, the past two years, we haven't been able to do that."

It starts with the manager. Manuel was 55-38 this year after relieving Randolph, which is good enough to get the "interim" taken off his job title, maybe as soon as today. There will be no outside search. There isn't expected to be any stringing along like there was a year ago with Randolph. "The job that he did, I thought, was a very good job," Minaya said of Manuel. "I think if you talked to the players, they would tell you that he did a very good job."

That they did. Wright and Beltran and Carlos Delgado praised Manuel, with Beltran going as far as saying, "We feel he did his part," before putting the majority of blame (correctly) on the players. Manuel seems like a good guy. The players (obviously) adore him. The executives respect him. The media appreciate his quips and quirks. Those are all good things.

But this is still a bottom-line business, and the bottom line is that the Mets need success right away.

They need a leader and they believe that they have already found him. Someday soon, the Mets will officially become Manuel's. His team. His lineups. His path.

His players, pitching and hitting and running, trying desperately to climb over the fence of their own history.